12/02/2008 @ 7:00PM

The Billionaire Bloggers

When the SEC charged Internet billionaire Mark Cuban with insider trading on Nov. 17, the brash mogul’s followers knew where to look for the best commentary. Not newspapers, not cable TV but his uncensored personal soapbox, blogmaverick.com.

By Nov. 18, Cuban had posted two statements by his attorneys to the blog and dismissed the SEC’s conduct as “results-oriented, facts-be-damned.” In a single day, his Web traffic tripled.

It wasn’t the first time. During the 2006 NBA playoffs pitting his own Dallas Mavericks against the San Antonio Spurs, he posted a critical entry about game officials and was promptly fined $200,000 by the league.

Cuban is hardly alone in embracing online journaling- more than 112 million people in the world blog regularly–but billionaires, with their vast wealth, power and (normally) deep desire for privacy, are a rarity.

So far, we’ve found 13 billionaires out of the 1,125 on our list who are true bloggers. We didn’t count occasional “guest bloggers,” such as George Soros’ onetime contribution to The Huffington Post, but looked at those who blog regularly, for work or for pleasure. They range in age from 24 (Mark Zuckerberg) to 80 (T. Boone Pickens) and span five industries, including media, tech and finance. No billionaire blog is alike, but across the spectrum, a few themes stand out.

The most obvious is the ego-driven blog, in which billionaires indulge in a bit of self-promotion. Donald Trump, for instance, presides over not one but three blogs affiliated with his eponymous brand: a blog devoted to his TV show The Apprentice, a “marketing maestro blog” out of his Trump University outfit and a straight-up “Trump blog” authored largely by The Donald himself.

T. Boone Pickens, despite his 80 years, has taken up blogging to help propel his pro-wind power Pickens Plan into the conscious of Americans. Posts address his “Army” with updates on their encroaching impact. Russian metals magnate Mikhail Prokhorov’s blog resembles a tricked-out MySpace page with a video of him flipping stunts on his Jet Ski and a gallery of glamour shots.

Some billionaires use blogs to connect with the masses and project a folksiness and likeability more authentic than anything a public relations exec can accomplish. Marriott hotel magnate Bill Marriott’s blog persona is avuncular and salt-of-the-earth, with book suggestions and awed praise for Marriott employees. Media doyenne Oprah Winfrey detailed her 21-day “cleansing fast” on her blog at Oprah.com last summer, spelling out the daily highs and lows of a vegan diet to her fans. Beloved Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling answers questions from readers on how to get published on jkrowling.com.

Blogs have served as a useful way for some billionaires to espouse their opinions as a means to influence others’ thinking. Reputed shareholder activist Carl Icahn, for instance, devotes numerous blog posts to his thoughts on corporate governance, while Dubai construction magnate Khalaf Al Habtoor sounds off on thorny issues like the threat of Iran on his site, AlShindagah.com. Call it political positioning, but whatever their intent, billionaire bloggers are more proof that cyberspace is probably the most democratic real estate on the planet.